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On Spam

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 11:43 am
by Krulle
I know this post will get deleted when OP gets deleted, rightly so, but as a remark:
the members-list sorted by newest members first (link) includes MANY www-links which go to pages which should not be linked on a "safe" webpage.
Some, like this guy have not added a homepage, but added a signature, and there is a spam-link.

Both way of linking is spam, and helps the spammer.

Can you "bulk-delete" forum members easily?
If yes, it might be an idea to remove members with a zero post count from time to time.

Re: spam in signature/homepage on members listing

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:19 pm
by Arioch
Krulle wrote:If yes, it might be an idea to remove members with a zero post count from time to time.
I do periodically de-activate users with no posts, but deleting spam accounts is not ideal, as it allows a bot with the same IP to just create another account.

I would be surprised if there were very many people going through the members list clicking on homepage links.

Re: On Spam

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 7:54 pm
by Quazel
Thank you for not deleting me during my absence then. :)

Re: On Spam

Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:08 pm
by novius
I might have another idea.

Put the spammer accounts on a specific set of permissions so that they have access to a 'dummy' forum section which they can read and post to but is separate from the rest.

Spambots are smart enough to post their junk and see if their posts got deleted or not, but if you jail them into their own sandbox they should be none the wiser.

Re: On Spam

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 10:47 am
by SVlad
novius wrote:I might have another idea.
Put the spammer accounts on a specific set of permissions so that they have access to a 'dummy' forum section which they can read and post to but is separate from the rest.
Spambots are smart enough to post their junk and see if their posts got deleted or not, but if you jail them into their own sandbox they should be none the wiser.
Unfortunately, if spambot is smart enough to check it's posts, it is usually also smart enough to doublecheck it as anonymous. This approach works on closed-for-non-registered forums, but it's not a case.

Re: On Spam

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 11:01 am
by Krulle
Spambots create new accounts coming from new IP addresses.

None of the advertised elements here will function (all have been tried already).
The search engine bots see the links, register them, and thus "+1" the linked site.
Only the google [bot] and bing [bot] are smart enough right now to differentiate.
Deleted spam posts cause a massive negative rating to the propagated link (hence the importance of really deleting spam), and with bing[bot] and google[bot], they also notice whether a use has posted or not (and give negative points to the propagated link), but the Baidu [bot] does still give positive ratings for any link in user profiles (they are working on it). But a deleted 0 post user will decrease the ratings for links even faster.

Anyway, not really important... The up in rating is abyssimal regarding the total points they need to reach anyway.

I thought phpBB can lock IP ranges independent of "deactivated used". A deactivated, then deleted user should also keep the IP range blocked...
May be the older version here...